Archive for the ‘Herbs’ Category

I have been procrastinating about making my jun (a kombucha variant using green tea instead of black, and honey instead of sugar), mainly because it involves heating up 2 quarts of water, steeping the tea for 10 minutes and the herbs with it for 20 minutes, then letting it cool so the raw honey won’t be cooked…lots of steps and I’m tired.

Well, I was perusing Yahoo news, and an article popped up about making tea. After reading it I realized that how I made tea was based upon what I heard decades ago, and here was info based upon some studies of what actually happens using various temperatures and times to steep the leaves. There is also some good info on the differences among the various types of tea (black, green and white) and that ideally we’d make a cup of each one of those teas using the best temperature and amount of time. Who knew?!

Because of my car accident I’ve not been able to drive (and don’t have a car even if I could) and therefore have found it difficult to get to my favorite hiking trails in the Carson National Forest.

I live along a highway and have lamented that there’s nowhere beautiful to walk from my house. I proved myself misinformed when I took my camera (a Canon set on auto) out at dusk and dawn at the time of the Summer Solstice. I focused upon what most of us tend to overlook as we travel–the highway right of way.

So here are some photos of various “weeds” and interesting “objects” literally at my feet, as well as the rather unassuming aspect of my walk when looked at from head-height. Beauty may not just be “in the eye of the beholder” but also in what perspective we choose to use.

This post by Rodale is a compendium of natural cold and cough remedies. The only caveat: there are brand names used that I would NOT recommend. For honey, use raw and wild (less pesticides, and all the enzymes intact). For salt, use any bulk salt that is natural (Himalayan pink, sea salt, etc.) because they don’t contain additives (like anti-caking agents). For black pepper, get certified organic: not sprayed, not irradiated.

Seasonal allergic rhinitis occurs when one’s immune system overreacts to foreign materials and produces an inflammatory response. Grass, weeds, and trees release tiny pollens into the air, and inhaling them triggers a reaction of your immune system. Floating pollutants such as mold spores and dust mite droppings also contribute (though in warmer climates, this can happen year round).

Uncovering what makes the immune system respond the way it does is important. One theory is that an excessive antigenic stimulus overwhelms the immune system, and this is what leads to an inflammatory response. In other words, a small amount of allergen may not be enough to cause symptoms, but continued exposure—or the exposure of number of antigens—can lead to an overload of the system. This is magnified when one’s immune system is weak (which happens easily when one is tired or stressed or has recently been ill).

There are natural approaches to seasonal allergies that work well:

Calm the allergic response. According to a study in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, subjects who took 2600 mg of MSM (methylsulfonylmethane) found their upper and total respiratory symptoms significantly reduced within seven days, and improvement continued for all thirty days of the study. Also, as Dr. Mercola notes, MSM is 34% sulfur, which can help maintain optimal health. Sulfur helps the body detoxify itself, and helps produce glutathione, an important antioxidant. MSM is extremely safe and can be taken at high doses, even if one’s diet is full of raw vegetables and MSM-rich foods. Some of our staff have found complete relief from allergies with this product, but required higher daily doses than 2600 mg.

Another substance that helps calm down the immune system under a pollen attack is the Alpine herb butterbur. In Scotland, researchers found that butterbur is effective. It can also be used in conjunction with MSM—the sulfur to condition the body, and the herb for acute attacks. Petadolex, a butterbur extract supplement, reduces inflammation so well that it can be used for migraines and other headaches too—it was endorsed as an OTC remedy for migraines by the Academy of Neurology and the American Headache Society after their review of 284 scholarly articles on the subject. Butterbur in the wild contains a potentially toxic substance, but Petadolex has removed it.

Freeze-dried nettles and quercetin are also used to reduce allergic response. They both work—the former sooner, and the latter over time—but they typically reduce rather than eliminate symptoms. Antihistamine drugs were initially developed from quercetin. As is often the case, the drugs had serious side effects (such as drowsiness) while the natural product from which it is derived did not. Another natural product that shows promise is Carnivora, derived from the plant of the same name, although more research needs to be done.

Remove food allergens (which lightens the antigenic load). As the Townsend Letter points out, allergic/inflammatory processes may first become active in the gut. Then transportation of food proteins across the intestinal wall becomes altered, resulting in increased permeability and motility of the intestine—Leaky Gut Syndrome. Coupled with other conditions, such as intestinal infections, flora imbalance, and decreased immunoglobulin A antibodies, this may lead to further intestinal compromise and increased antigen-immune interaction.

Get acupuncture. Researchers had 442 people with seasonal allergies receive acupuncture treatments. After eight weeks of acupuncture, a 71% patients reported an improvement in their symptoms (according to a scale used to measure allergy symptoms, the severity of these patients’ symptoms decreased by an impressive 37%).

Reduce general inflammation in the body. Eating lots of veggies with deep-water fish will decrease inflammation levels. Omega-3s from all sources can reduce inflammation as well. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, licorice, skullcap, cordyceps, and perilla have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties (though consult a TCM practitioner for guidance).

Strengthen the immune system. At the head of our list is vitamin D3, which reduces the incidence of respiratory infections. Also get plenty of vitamin E and magnesium, and knock off the sugar, which greatly weakens the immune system. And don’t forget vitamin C: studies indicate it’s a natural antihistamine.

Even though it is trying to snow today, wind-born pollen, dust and allergens have already begun here in northern New Mexico, and certainly in other places. Although I am (knock on wood) mostly immune to these, many phone calls come in now about what we can do to lessen the effects of hay fever. The previous article is a great visual and explanation of what happens when we react to pollen. If you want to try any of the mentioned supplements, please call me by Sunday evening toll-free @877-286-2970 and I can get you started.

Green Tea Changes Estrogen Metabolism and Breast Cancer Risk

New research from the U.S. National Institutes of Health shows that the biochemicals in green tea change a women’s estrogen metabolism, revealing at least one of its mechanisms for reducing the risk of breast cancer.

Evidently we are having an early and intense flu season. Not the kind of holiday gift anyone wants. So here are a few suggestions to help prevent getting ill:

SLEEP enough. Yes, there are parties, relatives, visiting, yummy holiday food, movies, end of the year to do lists. However, even healthy adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night…and many folks need more that their usual amount in the dark time of the year. Do not skimp. If you feel tired, nap or go to sleep a little earlier. Check in with yourself: do I really want to do whatever it is that I’ve planned and said I’ll do. Taking care ahead of time: prevention is easier than curing, though not always as much fun as pushing ourselves…until we get sick!

In the Chinese medical system, winter is about nourishing our kidneys, as well as keeping them physically warm. Try eating a bit more of the following foods: cranberries, spinach, sesame seeds, sardines, broccoli, garbanzo beans, garlic, parsley, celery, and fish (especially Pacific salmon). Green tea, lemon water, shiitake mushrooms, ginger, and vinegar are very nourishing and helpful.

Drink enough water, and hold the ice. Now is the season for warm teas, bone broths, and soups.

Moderation: not too much protein, sugar (well, I am hardly going to say none, as even I eat the Christmas cookies my 84-year-old mom bakes), starches or fast food. Try substituting winter squash, pumpkin, yams, sweet potatoes, and purple potatoes for bread and sugary starches. Go ahead and add a small amount of molasses, raw honey or maple syrup to your yams or baked apple and call it desert instead of ice cream or other cold sugary sweets.

Here in Northern New Mexico we had our record-breaking temperatures in June; however, many of my friends and customers in other states are living with near constant scorching temperatures that barely go down by dawn only to pop back up into the high 90’s and above, with little relief. So this blog is a copy of a recent Rodale article that is very timely and chock full of great info. One thing I will add here: many of us eat lots of fruit in the summer, and many are cooling to the body; however, most non-organic fruit contains very high amounts of pesticide residue. So eat your fruit, but make sure it’s organically grown.

The Best All-Natural Ways to Stay Cool

Keep heat waves at bay with these natural, and sometimes surprising, cool-down secrets.

By Isaac Eliaz, MD, integrative health expert

Topics: summer safety

Water is only part of the story when it comes to surviving a heat wave.

Summer can be a very energetic time of year, a time when many of us head to the outdoors for increased activities during the longer, warmer days. But as heat wave records make headlines across the country, it’s critical to protect yourself by staying cool. While extra movement, time in nature and fresh air can do wonders for your health, it’s also vital to pay close attention to your body’s vulnerabilities as 2012 continues to heat up.

Summer and Fire In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), summer relates to the fire element—and on a physical level, TCM emphasizes the health of your heart and circulatory system during this season. As daylight increases, your energy and activity will naturally expand, reaching farther away from your core and calling on strong circulation to keep up with the increased demands. And as temperatures rise, healthy circulation and its anti-inflammatory effects become even more important.

Poor circulation creates a condition of stagnation throughout the bloodstream. This can be aggravated during the summer due to heat and dehydration, which makes our blood thick and sticky, and without enough fluids to keep circulation flowing smoothly. On a chronic level this is referred to in Western medicine as hyperviscous coagulation, or hyperviscosity. Stagnant blood in turn generates more heat, furthering a vicious cycle of chronic inflammation throughout the body. And as we know, chronic inflammation is the hallmark of a wide variety of illnesses, including heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer.

Hyperviscosity of the blood is sometimes due to genetic tendency. Approximately 25 percent of the population exhibits one or more inherited “defects” which can be measured through cardiovascular blood screening. People with these genetic markers, such as elevated Lp(a) (Lipoprotein-a); PAI-1(Plasminogen Activation Inhibitor 1); or homocysteine, are more prone to high cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart disease as well as aggressive cancer and other chronic illnesses. But hyperviscosity can also be caused by unhealthy lifestyle, dietary habits, and infections or traumas. Together, hyperviscosity and chronic inflammation set the stage for a number of deadly diseases. But regardless of whether you are genetically predisposed to these issues, or whether your lifestyle is to blame, or both, there are a number of ways to prevent the damage, stay healthy and protect against disease.

Heat Waves and Heart Attacks During summer, the combination of hot weather, chronic inflammation, and lack of circulation can turn deadly, increasing the risks of heart attack, stroke, and other serious cardiovascular events. Additional summer health risks, such as heat stroke/heat exhaustion, burns, and dehydration, are all related to excess inflammation, causing our engines to “overheat.”

So the most important step you can take to protect your health during summer is to keep chronic inflammation in check. This degenerative process of continuous “overheating” degrades your body through wear, tear, and oxidative stress, serving as a primary function of the aging process—and of degenerative, life-threatening diseases.

Keeping Your Cool What can you do this season to make sure your heart stays strong and your body cool and hydrated? Here are some steps you can take to protect your health in the heat.

Take advantage of the increase in fresh produce available this time of year. Emphasize leafy greens, and rehydrating fruits and vegetables with high water and mineral content. These not only help replenish fluids, but they are very high in phytonutrients and antioxidants, things we need to combat inflammation and resulting oxidative stress. Oxidative stress in this case is mainly caused by waste from our cells’ mitochondria—the engines that power our cells—working too quickly in the heat. This excess cellular waste accumulates faster in conditions of poor circulation and inflammation. So if you eat a fresh produce diet that is high in antioxidants, phytonutrients, and ingredients that support the detox process, you help to get rid of the byproducts of mitochondrial “heat.” In this way, an abundance of fresh vegetables and fruits help break the cycle of inflammation, hyperviscosity and heat damage.

Drink LOTS of fresh, filtered water (approximately 64 ounces a day). This will keep fluid levels at a maximum to help circulation stay strong, reduce inflammation and help clear mitochondrial waste products and other toxins.

Replenish electrolytes with a healthy electrolyte and mineral supplement. Potassium is an important electrolyte, as well as magnesium, calcium and trace minerals. Electrolytes support communication between cells and are critical to basic biological functions, but we lose them through sweat and dehydration. High-quality coconut water is a good natural choice.

Take cooling, anti-inflammatory supplements. When we have a lot of heat, we need to cool our systems, and for this we can use different anti-inflammatory supplements. There are three basic categories of supplements that can help reduce inflammation. Botanicals and nutrients directly reduce inflammatory reactions in the body. Other botanicals and nutrients also offer antioxidant support to prevent oxidative heat damage. Botanicals and nutrients that help circulation are also important because through increased circulation, chronic inflammation and “blood stickiness” is reduced. An excellent example is curcumin derived from turmeric root: It is an anti-inflammatory, it’s an antioxidant and it promotes circulation.

Slow down. On the level of physics, if you have more heat, everything moves faster—even our thoughts can move faster. So the natural balance is to slow down, by taking more time for sleep, relaxation and rest. Stress-relieving activities like meditation, art, listening to music and vacations in nature help to calm the system so that heat, inflammation and the resulting congestion is reduced. For this reason, it’s very important to take time off in the summer—something that seems to be lacking in the American culture. People often take only a two or three-day vacation, but it really takes six to seven days for the body to start unwinding from the daily grind.

Engage in gentle, regular exercise. Walking is especially beneficial (without overheating in the midday sun). Gentle exercise promotes healthy circulation and helps us to relax. Regular, rhythmic exercise is particularly valuable in helping to keep you calm yet energized, while boosting circulation and reducing inflammation. That’s the value of practices like yoga, Tai Chi or Qi Gong, which have a calming, rhythmic breathing element to them.

Slowing down and making sure that you allow your body to cool down, regulate internal temperatures, and regenerate fluids are necessary preventative measures for a long and healthy life. These simple steps are even more important for your health and vitality during periods of prolonged heat.

Repairing Chronic Heat Damage We know from basic physics that heat is a manifestation of an increase in kinetic movement—and when you live a high-paced lifestyle with no time to relax, “cool,” rehydrate, and lubricate your body, your “engine” is going to heat up. Sometimes, this damage from chronic excess heat can be more serious, requiring replenishment not just in the form of extra fluids and electrolytes, but also “fluid-generating” herbs and botanicals that can help hydrate and maintain moisture in tissues and organs.

This type of heat damage can be addressed by a group of botanicals called “body fluid regenerators” (or yin regeneration herbs, as they are classified in TCM) that work on different parts of the body:

• Tian men dong (asparagus tuber) and mai men dong (Ophipogon tuber) work to promote blood and fluids in the heart, the lungs, and the stomach • Shu hu (dendrobium stem) helps maintain moisture in the lungs, the stomach, and the eyes • Zhi mu (Anemarrhena root) is another herb that’s very important for the stomach when you have severe dryness • Sheng di huang (Rehmmania) is also very important for nourishing the blood, which moisturizes all the organs.

So sometimes, you have to balance between clearing the heat and nourishing the body fluids.

A whole-foods diet rich in fruits, vegetables, unprocessed whole grains, and essential fatty acids (found in nuts and fish) is also a crucial part of a strong, healthy circulatory system. The antioxidants, fiber, and omega-3s this type of diet provides serve to minimize the effects of free radicals, promote healthy arteries, and soothe excessive heat.

Summer can be an exciting and rewarding time of year, offering more time in nature, opportunities for new adventure, an abundance of healthy fresh produce, summer celebrations, and more. If we take the right steps to promote our health in the midst of this season’s warmth and activity, we can reap the benefits of increased vitality and energy, rather than wilting away under the scorching heat.

Today I played kitchen apothecary and made several fresh herbal tinctures: chickweed, nettles, alfalfa and horsetail. For herbs that are 80 to 90 % water, these are remarkably tough plants (well, the chickweed is from my greenhouse and is rather delicate). I use a Cuisinart to chop up the herbs, and then add certified organic grain alcohol, distilled water and natural source vegetable glycerin to make the “menstruum” or the liquid that sits (or macerates) for weeks or months, and is finally strained to become a fresh herb tincture. What I have learned over 2 dozen years of this process is that each plant has a preferred (so to speak) ratio of herb to liquid, and alcohol percentage so that the tincture has optimal healing properties…..the only problem being that the “experts” (including naturopaths, herbalists and chemists) differ (sometimes greatly) in their opinions of what those numbers should be. Enter art, intuition, and whose theory makes the most sense…

The other day my renter rescued a pig. Yup, a wee pig was loose in Questa, and suffering from sunburn. So she’s now under the trees in a double dog crate healing before heading south to a farm where she will live (and NOT become food). I fed her watermelon rinds, and pigs really do grunt (rather sweetly) as they eat (which they do rather delicately).

And did you ever wonder why so many cancers that are treated with chemo and radiation come back so fiercely? Turns out there are cancer stem cells, that are usually not killed by those two treatments.

Allergy season is early this year, and many folks are heading for the drug store for over the counter anti-histamines, etc. However, these medications have side effects and add to the chemical burden on our bodies. Below is most of an article written by a nutritional scientist who works for Pure Encapsulations, one of the companies in my supplement buying club. He does an excellent job of explaining the process of allergic reaction and gives some great herb and supplement advice. And yes, I can assist you in procuring the mentioned herbs and supplements. {Anyone who wants the footnotes, please email me.}

From early spring through November, more than 22 million Americans seek comfort as airborne pollens, grasses, weeds and fungi naturally reach their peak. In the nasal lining and bronchial tubes of sensitive individuals, environmental particles enlist a multi-step process in which resident immune cells, known as mast cells, are activated by accumulation of immunoglobulin E (IgE). Active mast cells release prostaglandins, leukotrienes and other chemical mediators that modify local fluid and inflammatory balance. Effective nutritional avenues that target multiple points in this process include polyphenols, botanicals and probiotics.*

Polyphenols

Polyphenols, particularly quercetin, hesperidin and related flavonoids, have been extensively researched for nasal and upper respiratory homeostasis. It is well-established that quercetin and hesperidin maintain the integrity of mast cell membranes and moderate enzymes that direct the synthesis and release of inflammatory mediators.1 Support for mast cell membrane integrity is also an important mechanism of the complex flavonoid spectrum found in apple extracts.2 In contrast to the simple flavonoid structure of quercetin, apple extracts contain flavonoids linked together in chains to form oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPCs). Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials have demonstrated that apple polyphenols are highly effective in maintaining healthy vascular permeability and measures of nasal responses.2*

Botanical extracts

Nettle (Urtica dioica), guduchi (Tinospora cordifolia) and butterbur (Petasites hybridus) have an extensive history of clinical and traditional use for maintaining immune balance. In randomized, double-blind trials, each of these botanicals have provided significant support for immune homeostasis and subjective indices of nasal responsiveness and upper respiratory function.3-5